


frozen to the bone

by depthsofgreen



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Dream Sex, M/M, Pining, Temperature Play, frozen ed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11263449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depthsofgreen/pseuds/depthsofgreen
Summary: In Oswald's dreams, Ed's touch is ice-cold. When awake, he hopes Victor Fries just might make a suitably frosty replacement. Post-3x22.





	frozen to the bone

Edward Nygma is frozen, Barbara Kean dead, and Gotham has never been more entirely in Oswald’s hands.  

Every night, the line twisting ‘round The Iceberg Lounge gets longer and more glamor-studded, new applications for Strange-powered muscle pile up on Oswald’s desk, and more crime family heads re-bend the knee before him.

After the year he’s had, and the _life_ before that, Oswald knows better than to get too complacent. Much like loyalty, stability has no place in Gotham City, and Oswald knows it’s only a matter of time before this stretch of peaceful thriving comes to fiery end. He sees it daily in the too-quickly-fading smiles of the mob bosses who take his orders with a hardened glint in their beady eyes, hears it in the hungry laugh of every Arkham escapee who walks through The Lounge’s doorway looking for trouble.

The inevitability of yet more war on the horizon doesn’t ruffle Oswald in the slightest, the looming tumult of it almost appealing in its own masochistic way. Still, Oswald hasn’t lost sight of the need to savor these days of easy living while he’s still got them, and so savor away he does, obscenely lavish liquors ever on his tongue and mirthful gloats on his lips. 

Easily better than either of those things, though, are his daily sessions with his old friend Edward.

Ed makes quite the stunning centerpiece, all that rage and power contained as if stuck in time. The neon blue lights of The Lounge’s ambiance bounce off the ice’s surface just _exquisitely_ , and its ten-foot chill radius means no one ever dares stand too close. It’s been months and Oswald still delights in the looks of awed shock that cross the faces of people bearing witness to it for the first time, the way they draw their arms a little closer around themselves as if to ward off the cold and protect themselves from The Penguin’s ever-threatening wrath all at once. 

Enjoyable as all that is, it’s the alone time he gets with Edward that he values most. He blocks off an hour in his schedule every morning to spend some time with Ed before the club opens to the public, drink in hand. Sometimes he smiles, sometimes he even lets his eyes go misty. Always he reflects, and always he stays silent - Ed can’t hear him, after all, and Oswald isn’t sure he has anything more to say regardless. Ed had already heard it all. 

It grounds him, these moments spent with Ed, keeps his eyes sharp, his fist clenched at his cane. Oswald can admit (to himself and no one else) that it pleases him, too, to get to just _look_ at Ed after everything. Oswald had always liked looking at him, even in those early days when his feelings were still quiet, and he likes now that it lets him have Ed in some small, cruel way.  

Somewhere along the line, Victor Fries began sporadically joining him in these stare sessions. It had irritated Oswald at first, near enough to lash out, but he’s aware Ed’s existence here would never have been possible in the first place without Victor’s hand, so he’d let it slide. It helped that Victor was always quiet, quieter, even, than Oswald, and that he stood several feet behind him. Sometimes Oswald wasn’t even aware he was there until he turned to leave. 

Oswald is surprised, then, when Victor one day interrupts the silence with a question: 

“Are you ever tempted to unfreeze him?”

It’s gruff and blunt, in typical Freeze fashion. Oswald blinks before turning to face him. 

“No,” Oswald says after a moment, and he’s _almost_ sure he means it, “He’s where he needs to be, and no good would come of it.” 

Victor’s pale glowing eyes flicker down to Oswald’s face, and he nods before looking up at Ed once more. 

Watching him watch Ed, Oswald finds himself wondering, for the first time, what _Victor_ gets out of this time spent considering Edward. He’d always assumed it was a pride thing for him, a silent worshipping of his own brilliant work, but there’s something in the air between them now that makes Oswald question if there might be more.  

There’s a question forming at the back of his throat when Victor turns and leaves without another word, and that’s that.

Oswald watches him go, half-tempted to follow before thinking better of it and turning back to Ed, bringing the tumbler in his hand up to his lips contemplatively. As he looks up at Ed’s outstretched arms, untouchable in that thick block of ice, Victor’s question finds reverb in his head: _Are you ever tempted to unfreeze him?_

With a full-body shiver, Oswald drains what’s left of his glass. 

***

Victor is known to vanish for full days at a time within the room in The Iceberg Lounge that Oswald has set up for him. Oswald slips into the space’s other rooms with some frequency, knocking on Ivy’s door when he needs to rant or drink something that will put him immediately to sleep, or on Bridgit’s when he can feel the grip of that old Arkham conditioning taking too-firm hold and he needs someone who’s been through it to talk him down. Victor’s room, however, he rarely visits, in part because Victor is hardly conducive to conversation while he’s working but also because the air conditioning in his room goes thirty degrees below zero and Oswald feels most himself when _not_ bundled in layers of fur and insulation. 

Today Oswald makes an exception, because it’s been _days_ and Oswald is still catching himself dwelling on Victor’s question in quiet moments. Oswald straightens the thick-knit beanie atop his head and knocks on Victor’s door, the cold of it hitting his knuckles even through leather gloves. 

A long enough time passes without response that Oswald is readying to walk away when the door swings just slightly open, Victor’s face and horror-movie eyes visible through the ice fog starting to escape through the door’s crack.

Oswald waits to be invited inside (he does _pay_ for the maintenance of this ludicrously expensive room, after all), but Victor only stares expectantly. 

“Victor,” Oswald clears his throat pointedly, “May I come in?” 

Victor swings the door fully open, face unchanging. 

“Wasn’t sure you’d _want_ to come in,” Victor clarifies, closing the door behind them as Oswald squeezes past him, “I don’t exactly get a lot of visitors.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Oswald mutters as he considers the room around him, a clutter of frosted lab glassware and chunks of ice holding various insects and small animals. 

Oswald’s focus shifts to Victor as he moves to sit on a chair dripping icicles. He’s out of his suit, wearing nothing but a pair of tight-fitting pants. Oswald forgets, sometimes, that Victor is as human as he is, skin and sinew beneath that freezing armor he has to walk the outside world in. It’s good for him to be reminded, he thinks. Where would any of Gotham’s freaks be, after all, if they couldn’t even see the humanity in each other? 

It’s only after him and Victor have held eye contact for a truly awkward stretch of time that it occurs to Oswald that he needs to be the one to initiate conversation.  

It occurs to him also, unfortunately, that he doesn’t actually have any idea what he wants to say. 

“How’s the work?” Oswald settles on, gesturing toward a dead, frozen-stiff rabbit sitting on the desk behind Victor. 

“Not where it needs to be,” Victor replies, mouth thinning.  

“I imagine experimenting on something larger than a _rabbit_ would help,” Oswald notes.  

“It did last time,” Victor nods, “But I’m not there yet.”

“Well,” Oswald says, approaching the desk to poke at the rabbit corpse with a grimace, “Gotham has no shortage of bodies. If you need help procuring any when you _are_ ready, I could arrange something.” 

“I think I can procure them on my own, but I appreciate the offer.” 

Oswald smiles tightly at that and looks back to the rabbit. 

“Is that all?” Victor asks. 

“Yes,” Oswald says, a little too quickly, then, “No.” 

Victor cocks his head just slightly. 

“What made you ask if I was tempted to unfreeze Edward the other day?” Oswald spits out in a hot rush, cheeks warming even in the arctic freeze of the room. 

The stone-still lines of Victor’s features relax into a look of surprise. 

“You spend so much time staring at him,” Victor answers, “I was just curious.” 

“Well, why do _you_ spend so much time staring at him?” 

“I’m not really staring at _him_ ,” Victor says, crossing his arms across his bare chest. 

“The ice, then?”

“I guess. That formula I used on him was meant for Nora.”  

“Nora,” Oswald repeats, leaning against Victor’s chair as his leg starts to cramp in the cold, “Your wife.” 

Oswald had thoroughly researched the man before recruiting him, of course, but this is the first time he’s ever mentioned his wife in front of him. 

“My wife,” Victor echoes, voice hollow, “Dead now.” 

Oswald considers his next words carefully. 

“Does it...bother you to see the formula you perfected for her gone to waste on someone I have no plans to thaw?” 

“No,” Victor says after a few seconds of consideration, face blank, “What does it matter.”

Before Oswald can think better of it, he lays a hand on Victor’s shoulder. Even through his glove, Victor feels like ice. The unexpected shock of it makes Oswald’s heart jump in his chest. 

Victor doesn’t react at all. Oswald has, of course, come to expect this of him. 

“Well,” Oswald says, voice strangely tight as he pulls his hand away, “I’ll leave you to your work now.” 

Victor only nods.

*** 

Oswald stands before Ed, several feet closer than he usually dares. The chill emanating from Ed’s display is cold enough that Oswald’s glass is frosting over in his hand. 

“ _Am_ I tempted to unfreeze you?” Oswald asks aloud, barely more than a whisper, eyes fixed on Ed’s mouth as if expecting a reply. 

Oswald holds his gaze until he’s trembling from cold, nose running.

*** 

Oswald dreams of Ed often.

Mostly, Ed appears as he had on that dock (the first time), voice cruel and eyes invisible behind a sheet of rainfall on his lenses. There was a time when Oswald relived the feeling of a bullet tearing through him every single night. 

Lately, though, Ed comes to Oswald just as he looks now, frosty, in his hat, but freed from the block of ice he’s imprisoned within. He can move, somehow, even iced over, and, worst of all, he can _talk_ : “Do you want to know, Oswald, why I could never love you? Why I never did?” 

Tonight, Ed doesn’t speak. He brings a hand instead to Oswald’s cheek. His skin is hard and smooth, _freezing_ cold. It drops to Oswald’s neck, squeezing down just slightly.

Oswald wakes with a gasp, shivering beneath his blanket even as his skin warms and he reaches a hand beneath his pajama bottoms to find himself erect.

*** 

Oswald is _not_ tempted to thaw Ed, he finally convinces himself one day. Ed had, after all, moved to shoot him not just once but _twice_ on their revisit of that awful dock.  

Oswald missed him, sure, _this_ he could admit. He missed even The So-Called Riddler, whose dark eyes had betrayed nothing but an all-consuming desire to see Oswald bleed again. But, missing him or no, Ed was where he had to be. Oswald could never sustain his grip ‘round Gotham’s throat were Ed still running around, fixated on Oswald and only Oswald as he’d no doubt be.  

It’s hard _enough_ , after all, to keep focused when Ed’s dreamscape visits intensify every night, his ice-hard touches getting bolder, more insistent. On Oswald’s neck, often, sometimes his wrist, or at his hip (the grip freezing even through clothing).  

He doesn’t want to thaw Ed, no, but he does think, sometimes, of asking Victor to melt him down enough that the block he’s stuck in disappears, leaving Ed equally frozen but _touchable_. Oswald would be able to reach up and feel the hardened shape of his outstretched hand, each of the individual fingers cold and unyielding. _Oswald_ would get to be the one doing the touching for once. 

He’d never ask Victor to actually do it, of course. The _particulars_ of Ed’s display were a hallmark of Oswald’s entire club brand. Besides, it was one thing to stare at Ed’s ice-bound form as often as he does. It’d be quite another to touch it, too. Oswald _already_ feels too much for this monument of the man he’d loved.  

To thaw him down enough to touch him would no doubt lead to Oswald genuinely wanting to thaw him down _completely_ , and that could never, ever happen. Oswald’s dreams would just have to do. 

*** 

Ed’s dreamscape counterpart kisses Oswald one night with no warning. Oswald’s lips go numb with the icy bite of it.  

Oswald is in cold sweats when he wakes up. He stumbles out of bed to pour himself a glass of scotch before he even checks to see what time it is, heart beating wildly in his chest. 

*** 

And just like that, Ed kisses him _every night_ in his dreams now, his tongue a hard lick of ice in Oswald’s mouth. Oswald always wakes with a start, the way he always used to just after the bullet made impact in his dreams of the dock.  

Alcohol always comes immediately after, the hot burn of it on his tongue and down his throat a temporary reprieve from the lingering taste and feel of Ed icy in his mouth.  

In tonight’s dream sequence, Ed had surprised him by moaning into the kiss, a soft little sound, and Oswald can’t get the feel of it out of his head or of his skin. He feels like he’s _buzzing_ , hungry and wild-eyed and desperate, and, at four drinks in, is seriously considering going downstairs to run his lips across the ice block holding Ed, just to feel some approximation of him outside a dream, because it’s unfair, really, that Oswald never got so much as a real _kiss_ before it all went to hell.  

Oswald is struck, then, unbidden, by a memory: Victor in his room, eyes pale and blank, the bare skin of his shoulder chilling Oswald’s hand to the bone.  

Oswald pours himself another glass, room spinning just slightly, and he knows he should slow down or stop entirely but he’s trembling all over with the dream-feel of Ed, the _memory_ -feel of Victor, and the drunker he gets the easier it is to overlap them in his head, imagine them both as fundamentally the same, icy and empty - and what’s the real risk, after all, in loving or in touching a cold, dead thing?  

Mind made up, Oswald bolts up from his chair and throws on his puffiest coat.  

He’s at Victor’s door before he’s even processed what he’s doing, smiling at his horrifying-but-curious eyes and entering the ice-fog of his room with a confidence that only starts to waver when Victor sits down and stares at him, a question. 

Oswald’s hands, ungloved this time, are trembling not with cold (he’s too drunk for that) but _nerves_ as he steps forward and places his right hand softly on Victor’s cheek. 

Victor _does_ react this time, eyes widening just a fraction.

“You’re so cold,” Oswald says, a little stupidly, because he _knew_ that already, but the feeling of Victor’s bare skin on his is so much _more_ than what Oswald’s gloved hand on his shoulder had been. 

“You’re so _warm_ ,” Victor replies, the usual staccato of his voice wobbling as he emphasizes the last word, the syllable light with what sounds like awe. 

“I keep having these dreams,” Oswald says after a few moments, feeling like he probably owes Victor an explanation as to why he knocked on his door in the middle of the night and grabbed for his face without a word, “About Ed. He’s frozen in them, but he can move and talk and. _Touch_ me.”

Victor holds his gaze, an invitation to continue.  

“And so - I just wanted -” 

Oswald drops his hand suddenly, ears going hot, because saying it out loud has made it all painfully _real_ , and this - groping at Victor, who works for him, who is very much a living breathing _person_ \- is both inappropriate and deeply, deeply embarrassing. 

“Apologies,” Oswald laughs, self-deprecating, “I had too much to drink and -”

Victor interrupts him by grabbing his wrist with a strength and grace that makes Oswald’s words die in his throat. 

“I dream, too,” Victor says, his eyes and voice bright with something Oswald’s never seen in him before, “Of Nora.” 

“Is she cold in your dreams, too?” Oswald asks, because everyone knows how _that_ love story ended.  

“No,” Victor smiles, teeth and all, “She’s alive. She’s warm.” 

“ _Oh,_ ” Oswald breathes, and Victor is standing up and kissing him, hands ice-cold on either side of Oswald’s face, and Oswald realizes he should probably be thinking a little harder about all this, but then Victor’s tongue is poking at his lower lip and all Oswald can see or feel or taste is _Ed_ , that hard lick of ice in his dreams, and so his lips part as he lets him in, roof and sides of his mouth tingling. 

They kiss hungrily, Oswald’s hands sliding up the ice-hard musculature of Victor’s back as Victor’s hands settle on the sides of his neck, and Oswald is moaning now, shaking all over, so swept up in the glacial feel of Victor (of _Ed_ ) it takes a moment for his eyes to open and his lips to come together when Victor pulls back, looking down into his face, palms steady. 

“It’s too cold in here for you,” Victor says, “You’re trembling.”

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” Oswald snaps, inching mouth-forward, but Victor stops him by sliding a hand up to his face. 

Oswald nods then, irritated, _insatiated_ , but begrudgingly aware that ending things here is for the best.  

“I should try to get some sleep, anyway,” Oswald announces as Victor’s hands fall back to his sides, the cold caress at Oswald’s skin gone.  

“Good night,” Victor says, eyes soft for a second before they’re blank and unblinking once more. 

Oswald feels suddenly, horribly empty as he turns to leave, the chill of the air hitting him in full all at once. 

*** 

Ed’s hands are around his throat, icy water dripping down the sides as if he’s melting. 

“You’re mine,” Ed growls into his ear as he spreads Oswald’s legs with a freezing knee, “I want to hear you say it.” 

“I’m yours,” Oswald whimpers. Helplessly, he wraps his leg up over Ed’s hip. 

“It’s funny,” Ed laughs, and then he’s pushing inside, cold and hard and all at once, “You think sticking me at the _heart_ of your club tells Gotham that you conquered me. Owned me.” 

He thrusts. Oswald is freezing inside and out.

“But all it really proves,” Ed laughs, with another aggressive drive of his hips, “Is how much _I_ still own _you_.”  

Oswald gasps, and then he’s awake. He lies still, breathing hard, and tries not to focus on the feel of his release cooling inside his pants. 

*** 

It’s been a week and Victor has yet to emerge from his room, a disappearance long enough by even his standards that Ivy and Bridgit ask about him over dinner one night. 

“How should _I_ know what he’s doing down there?” Oswald snaps, a little too irritably. 

Ivy and Bridgit exchange a look, knowing and subtly amused. Oswald storms from the table, glass of wine sloshing in his hand, and vows to never _ever_ hire another teenaged girl again, powerful or not.

Not an hour of drunken sulking passes before there’s a knock at his bedroom door. Already fuming, Oswald gets up and flings it open with a venomous “ _What_?”  

He’s shocked enough that his vision blurs when he sees Victor standing at his doorway, free of the cold suit Oswald is more used to seeing him in and dressed only in pants, just as he’d been the last time Oswald saw him. 

“Did Ivy and Bridgit put you up to this?” Oswald asks when the surprise wears down, face going newly warm with anger and embarrassment at the thought. 

“What? No,” Victor replies, lightly confused. 

“Oh,” Oswald manages, confused himself, “What do you want, then?”

“Can I come in?” Victor asks, and Oswald complies with a gesture of his hand, guiding Victor toward a chair as he shuts the door behind them and sits on the edge of his bed. 

“You haven’t been to see Nygma in a few days,” Victor notes after Oswald has settled comfortably. 

“I have not,” Oswald confirms, surprised by the observation, “Wait, have _you_ been showing up? We all assumed you’d been locked in your room all week.” 

“A couple times,” Victor says, rubbing his palms together. 

“Shouldn’t you be in your suit?” Oswald interrupts the thread of conversation to ask, eyes on Victor’s hands.

“I can function without it in regular temperatures for a few hours at a time,” Victor answers, “And I’ve been working on a solution that makes those few hours more physically comfortable than they’ve previously been.” 

“So this is a test run?” 

“Something like that,” Victor says, smiling just slightly. 

“Well?” Oswald asks, eyebrows raised, “Is it working?” 

“It is,” Victor says, smile widening. It’s the most human Oswald’s ever seen him look.  

Oswald can’t help but to smile back. 

“It’s just a band-aid solution, but it’s something,” Victor continues, “Much further than I got locked away with no resources.”  

“If that was a ‘thank you,’ then you’re welcome.” 

“I’ve been thinking about last week a lot,” Victor says, suddenly serious, words slow and careful, “How warm your touch was.” 

Oswald’s face goes hot.  

Victor seems to notice, because the corners of his lips quirk up just slightly. 

“I apologize for that,” Oswald says, looking down at the floor, “I was drunk and it was inappropriate -” 

“You’re drunk now,” Victor says, and Oswald looks back up to see him looking pointedly at the wine glass in Oswald’s hand with some amusement. 

“I was drunk _er_ ,” Oswald amends, grateful for the levity but still feeling suddenly and horribly vulnerable.  

“I’m glad it happened,” Victor says after a few moments, “Feeling you - it reminded me of the life I used to have. I didn’t think I’d ever feel someone’s touch again, not after Nora, or after what I did, what I _became_ …”

Oswald nods, relieved, and sets his glass down onto the floor beneath him with a bend and some effort. When he sits back up, he finds Victor risen from his chair and standing before him.  

Oswald can only stare up, eyes wide. Victor brings a hand to his face. 

“Do I still feel cold?” Victor asks, voice light with curiosity but threaded through with some playfulness, too.

“Yes,” Oswald says, holding his stare, quite still under his touch.  

“You’re still warm,” Victor smiles, spreading his fingers to trace his pinky down the curve of Oswald’s jaw, “Getting warmer now.” 

Oswald’s eyelids are already fluttering closed before Victor closes the space between them and presses his open mouth to Oswald’s, tongue licking at Oswald’s nether lip. Oswald’s lips part in reaction, kissing him back, and of course it’s still Ed he sees, that nightmare-echo of his voice in his head ( _you’re mine_ ), and when Victor moves to nudge Oswald’s thighs open he knows Victor’s mind is elsewhere too, on blonde hair and soft curves, and it’s _electrifying_ , somehow, just for a second, to know that they’re connected in mutual disconnect from this whole thing.  

Victor’s hand slides down Oswald’s back and everything inside Oswald goes _hot_ even as goosebumps prickle up his skin, and Victor is gently pushing him back onto the bed, settling atop him. And, _oh_ , how many times Ed has had Oswald in exactly this position in his dreams, the temperature and weight of Victor _just right_ , but then an icy touch is sliding up-up- _up_ his thigh and it’s silly, but it’s not a move Ed has ever made inside his head, and Oswald feels his spine stiffening, his lips slowing, and Victor, no doubt lost in dreams of his wife, fails to notice, losing no speed or reach, and Ed’s icy nightmare form may be cruel but he’s _attentive_.  

All of this, in truth, is starting to feel wrong, the bone-deep chill in Oswald’s body suddenly more uncomfortable than stimulating.

“Stop,” Oswald says suddenly, oddly panicked, hands flying up to Victor’s shoulders. 

Victor’s lips and hands still immediately. He props himself up onto his elbows as if to lessen the points of physical contact between him and Oswald. 

“Too cold?” Victor asks, eyes scanning Oswald’s face as he sits up to put more distance between them, and it’s all unexpectedly sweet enough that Oswald relaxes, wrapping his arms around himself. 

“No,” Oswald says, and Victor’s head cocks curiously, “Well, maybe a little, but it’s more that - I don’t think I can do this - with you. Or with anyone.” 

“Oh,” Victor breathes, tone betraying nothing as he moves fully off Oswald and shifts to sit next to him on the mattress instead.   

“I’m sorry,” Oswald says, burying his face in his hands before dropping them into his lap with a thud, “I’ve never - well. Done anything like this before.”

“You and Nygma never -?”

“No,” Oswald replies, the word heavy in his mouth, “ _That_ was entirely unrequited.”  

“I shouldn’t have been so forward. I just assumed…” 

“It’s okay,” Oswald smiles, “I started all this. And I did want it. I still kind of do.”  

“But I’m not Ed.” 

“No,” Oswald laughs, a soft, sad sound, “Even if you do feel remarkably like the version of him that nightly terrorizes me.” 

“Terrorizes?” 

“It’s a happy haunting, I suppose,” Oswald says, feeling his cheeks go hot. 

Victor nods at that, understanding, a sadness overcoming his features. 

“And it goes without saying that I,” Oswald continues, gesturing toward his own body with a hand, “Am definitely not Nora. The good news for you is that literally any human in Gotham can provide you with a warm touch, if that’s all you need to feel some part of her again.” 

“It wasn’t just your warmth,” Victor replies after a few moments of thoughtful silence, “You see me. As more than just a walking, breathing science experiment. Call me by my first name, look at me like I’m human.” 

“I try to,” Oswald says, squeezing his eyes shut with some embarrassment when he realizes how that probably sounded, “I don’t mean -” 

“It’s okay,” Victor laughs, “I know. It’s still a shock even for me sometimes when I catch my own reflection.” 

Oswald laughs, too, at that, a genuine sound, something that feels suspiciously like happiness blooming in his stomach. 

_I could maybe love you_ , _with time_ , Oswald realizes in that moment, the possibility of it like a flash of white lightning in his chest. But then, of course, he thinks of Ed, frozen stiff in a block of ice, a reminder to curb these very impulses before they become too big for Oswald to contain. _I could maybe love you, with time_ , Oswald thinks again, _But I can’t afford to let myself find out_.

Oswald looks down at his hands, the words ringing in his head, sharp and heavy: _I can’t afford to let myself find out_.  

He feels changed, somehow.  

“I should go,” Victor says suddenly, and Oswald wonders if he’s come to a similar realization of his own.  

Oswald looks up, nodding, and Victor holds his stare for just a moment before getting up to leave, a chill in the air behind him. 

Oswald flops back onto his bed with a sigh when Victor has closed the door. He feels hollowed out in his sudden absence, chest a void - not quite sadness, or loneliness. Not quite anything. It’s a state of unfeeling utterly new for him, like some essential strand in his wiring has been torn away. 

_Good_ , he thinks after a few moments of contemplation, _Good_.  

He drifts off to sleep with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

*** 

“It’s cute,” Ed laughs, cruelly, an ice-wet finger trailing down Oswald’s bared chest, “That _one_ instance of rational thought has you thinking you’ve overcome your base emotions when, well. Here I still am, the second you shut your eyelids.” 

“I’m harboring no delusions I’ve _overcome_ anything,” Oswald snaps, the slippery freeze of Ed’s hand gliding over his crotch as he shivers, “Just getting better at keeping my _base emotions_ in check.”  

“Hmmmm,” Ed smiles, eyes dead, “Let’s see you keep them in check now.” 

Ed’s hand slips down, fingers slipping inside, and Oswald _writhes_ , frost and fire opening him up, Ed’s laughter growing smugger as he slides his fingers out and in, out and in. 

“The thing is, Oswald,” Ed breaks his cackling to say, voice suddenly serious, if not _soft_ , “You’re going to unfreeze me eventually.” 

Ed uses his unoccupied hand to spread Oswald further, the icy-hot plunge of his digits reaching deeper. 

“This facade you’re committing to is going to crack, and missing me will become too much, and you’re going to do it.” 

Ed presses his teeth into the skin covering Oswald’s rib cage. Oswald moans. 

“Maybe it’ll take days, or months, or years, but you’re going to do it. You’re going to free me,” Ed’s voice is so low in pitch the sound of it sends tingles down Oswald’s spine, “You were always going to do it. You know that, right, Oswald? Deep, deep down, you _know_ it?” 

Ed’s fingers press still deeper as if to drive the point home, the pressure overwhelming. 

“Yes,” Oswald chokes, eyes cloudy, “I know, I know, I know…” 

Ed smiles, twists his hand, and Oswald comes so hard he wakes up screaming. 

*** 

The next morning, Oswald visits Ed’s ice-bound display for the first time in days. He’s both surprised and not to find Victor there, suited up, cold gun in hand and hanging at his side. Oswald can’t help but to let his eyes linger on it.

Victor and him exchange small smiles as Oswald walks past him, settling a few feet before Ed.

For several long minutes, Oswald says nothing, and Victor says nothing, and Ed, of course, says nothing, but Victor’s old question reverberates in Oswald’s mind all over again: _Are you ever tempted to unfreeze him?_ He can feel, still, the memory of Ed’s icy nightmare-grip around his throat, the freezing drag of his lips and fingers elsewhere. 

“Yes,” Oswald announces aloud, quite suddenly, gaze still fixed on Ed’s unmoving form, “The truth is, Victor, I am _immensely_ tempted to unfreeze him. I think - I _fear_ that one day, I just might have you do it.” 

Oswald turns, then, to find Victor already gone, Oswald’s confession echoing emptily with no audience.

But when Oswald faces Ed anew, he can swear he sees his eyes twinkling in the ice.

**Author's Note:**

> Title lifted and adapted from Virginia Woolf's _Orlando_. I should note also the influence of listening to Halsey's "Eyes Closed" on repeat while writing this: _if I keep my eyes closed, he feels just like you_...


End file.
